YOU FLIPPIN' BLEW IT

Stokes tosses away chance as Jaiswal and Gill cash in

- from JEREMY CROSS at Headingley

BEN STOKES admits he couldn't give a toss about how people will remember his time as England captain.

But most people will struggle to forget the decision he made following the flip of a coin at Headingley yesterday.

Because what followed did little to enhance his legacy as one of the true greats of the game.

The problem with sticking a team in to bat is that you have to then bowl them out.

Which is hard enough when those wielding the willow just happen to be some of the classiest in the business.

But the task is made even harder with an impotent bowling attack, toiling on a docile pitch, in sultry conditions more akin to India than Leeds.

No wonder century makers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill (inset, top) looked right at home.

The mistake Stokes made was paying too much attention to history. The record books showed that the last six teams to have bowled first on this ground had gone on to win.

Stokes should have ignored the past, though, and taken a bit more account of Mother Nature.